There's a cluster of fifteen vending machines in Tokyo's Akihabara, the city's gaming and geek district. The unmanned machines are in a ramshackle structure and sell drinks, snacks, and condoms. They are covered with some truly brutal threats that aim to strike fear in the hearts of would-be vandals. Japanese sites Rocket News and Touch Tokyo waded in and checked them out. Let's have a look.

"Those who put posters on this machine, vandalize it, or cover it in graffiti will have all twenty of their fingers and toes chopped off."

"To those graffiti offenders, it doesn't matter if you are male or female, your genitals will be cut out with a knife."

"Putting up posters is prohibited—I'll cut off your fingers"

Full size"This is not a toilet. Those who defecate or urinate, regardless if they are male or female, will have photos and movies of their face and genitals shown publicly in perpetuity." Apparently, a "security firm" is monitoring a security camera around the clock—or so a sign says.

Goodness! While crime is generally low in Japan (even vandalism), it seems these unmanned vending machines have been targets—hence the threats. But there could be more to this.

There's a slight tinge of dark humor to these threats. As Japanese website Tokyo Touch points out, not all the signs are threats: One even states that the bottled water on sale will prevent diseases, while another points out, "Popping popcorn is okay, but popping caps with guns is not." And yet another, far more helpful sign points out that a particular chocolate snack was moved to a different vending machine.

For decades now, Japanese vending machines have served up an array of interesting, mundane, and useful things. Things like manga. Or bread in a can.

Mmm. Bread. Delicious (well, somewhat) canned bread. In Japan, canned bread is a tasty treat for otaku. Don't believe me? Among the t-shirts and hug pillows being offered at an upcoming event for Xbox 360 game Dream Club, there are cans of bread. The cans feature characters from the virtual hostess game.If you've never had Japanese canned bread, there is a novelty factor. Hey, bread in a can! But with so many delicious bakeries in the country, there's the simple question of why anyone would want it. Which brings us back to the the novelty factor. Sure, you can carry it around, chuck it in your backpack. What canned bread does allow is the commodification of popular games or anime in way that bread wrapped in plastic bags does not. Slap an illustrated label on a can of bread, and bam, you've got Dream Club canned bread. Magic! It's much more striking than, say, Pokémon bread.

[color:af13=grey)](シフクノキロク) Called "pan" in Japanese, bread has a long history in the country, dating back centuries. Bread in a can became popular among otaku around 2006 or 2007. Pan Akimoto began selling Clannad canned bread; bread plays a role in the popular visual novel as the main heroine's parents operate a bakery.Around that same time, canned udon and canned oden were popular in Akihabara, because both were easy meals. Also, there was once again the novelty factor of being able to buy noodles in a can.Clannad canned bread, which was available in Akihabara retailers and vending machines, came in several flavors: chocolate, green tea, strawberry, butter, raisin, blueberry, and milk. It set off a slew of canned bread clones. Pan Akimoto started selling canned bread after the Kobe Earthquake in 1995.

[color:af13=grey)]

Full sizeD3P)Canned bread is not a Japanese innovation. It's been available in New England for decades—B&M Brown Bread is a camping and emergency food stash stable. As Flak Magazinepoints out, canned bread is "a throwback to an era in American history when they canned whole chickens". Boston brown bread was born out of necessity. Colonists baked bread from the resources they had, and since not all settlers had ovens, they cooked the bread in cans. (Here is a recipe for Boston brown bread.) But this time around, Dream Club, never one to shy away from innuendo, has a bread, or "pan", joke—a pun on underpants.

Or illicite substances.

Prior to the 2002 World Cup, hallucinogenic mushrooms were legal in Japan. They were sold in little vending machines at love hotels across Japan and funky little shops. Then, worrying about an influx of soccer hooligans, mushrooms were outlawed. These days, there are quasi-legal herbs. And some are being sold in vending machines and even in Tokyo's geek district Akihabara. And they'll apparently get you high. The quasi-legal herbs contain substances that resemble those in stimulants, but that are not technically illegal. In Japanese, they're called "dappou herb" (脱法ハーブ), and "dappou" means to skirt the law. According to Kyodo, sales of these herbs can be banned if the police find illegal substances in these herbs. Even if authorities do find said substances, the sellers can deny that they knew the herbs contained illicit ingredients. Recently, an increasing number of stories about the herbs have been appearing online. One Japanese weekly recently reported how young people were getting high off the herbs—and then getting off. According to one 20 year-old woman, one herb called "J" effects the body's orifices, making sex of the anal variety more pleasurable. Young people like it because it's "legal" and relatively cheap. For ¥1,000 (around US$13), you can get about 50grams. Last week, cops raided a "general merchandise store" in Yokohama for selling herbs that apparently had illegal drug like ingredients. The problem with these herbs (and this crackdown) is that they exist in a legal gray zone. Thus, no one was arrested, and the shop simply shut off its herb vending machine. Some of these vending machines are located right on the street (check this blog post), so people can easily purchase the herbs. There's even a capsule toy machine that dispenses dappou herb instead of toys. Kyodo reported that authorities confirmed 390 vendors across of Japan, which could mean one thing: lots of buttsex.

Or video game piracy cartridges.

Forget those mythical panty vending machines! This vending machine in Osaka's Den-Den Town is selling R4 devices.Best part? They're all sold out. Nintendo has been fighting the R4 piracy flash carts and fighting them hard. There's a court injunction against the Chinese R4 makers for "violation under Japan's laws". Yahoo! Auctions is prohibiting the device's sale. Retailers in both Akihabara and Den-Den Town do continue to carry the R4 devices. However, stores are apparently trying to liquidate their inventory before it becomes illegal to sell R4 devices in Japan.Earlier this summer, a vending machine selling R4 devices appeared in Osaka's electronics district, Den-Den Town. The vending machine will be removed from the area. The vending machine came in the wake of a crackdown on R4 cartridges which can be used to play pirated video games. As we posted previously, Nintendo announced that it and 54 software game companies were filing a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against companies that import R4-type devices, using the Unfair Competition Prevention Law as the legal grounding. According to Nintendo, such devices hurts the growth of the entire game industry and steps must be taken regarding the legality of R4 carts. It's important to note that this legal injunction is for Japan only. In addition to the suit, Nintendo launched a website devoted to collecting information about R4 sellers. "It's getting increasingly difficult to track down R4 sellers as day by day they get more ingenious, flourishing online and complicating matters," said Nintendo in a written statement. Because of this, Nintendo is calling on the strength of the masses to eradicate the sale of these devices. The website Nintendo has set up has an anonymous form that can be filled out. Selectable choices include retail stores, internet shops, online auctions selling R4 devices. Another choice includes "game software uploads" — or those sites or individuals making DS games available online. There's also spaces for dates and time, a box for details and another box for the shop's address or home page. Nintendo has said the information collected via this site has been "extremely useful".

In Japan, vending machines started to appear in 1950s with drink machines, and then really began to take off in the following decades. Today, Japan has the highest per capita rate of vending machines in the world (the U.S., however, has a high number of machines, most of which are soda heavy), with the vast majority still being drink machines. Over the years, it seems like people have put almost everything imaginable in vending machines, especially in the years before convenience stores really took off in the country and starting appearing on nearly every corner. Yet, vending machines, like the country's unmanned vegetable and fruit stands, do still serve a very useful purpose, especially in rural areas: round-the-clock retail. Here's a round up of some of Japan's more unusual vending machines. If you are wondering where the panty vending machine is, forget the panty vending machine!

Los Angeles. Summer 1997. There was this guy named Kevin in the office I worked at who was obsessed with the notion of panty vending machines. He even wrote a screenplay about them, complete with, as he explained, a scene at the panty vending machine factory. He said, "Dude, in Japan, they're on every corner."

My boss headed to Japan that summer to try to negotiate the rights to a Kinji Fukasaku gangster flick. But before my boss left, this guy wanted him to find out about these vending machines. When my boss got back, he brought back tales of hanging out with big time movie directors, delicious food, and new friends. But no underwear vending machines. There's a fascination in the West with Japan's underwear vending machines, as they are a perfect storm of what foreigners think are Japan's obsessions: tech and sex. In Japan, the vast majority of vending machines can be divided into two categories: drinks and cigarettes. But the country has seen an array of vending machines over the years—from comic books to umbrellas. Some of the most interesting vending machines have sold neckties, milk, noodles, batteries, and even canned bread. Vending machines that sell alcohol are harder and harder to find (they still exist, though!). From the late 60s to throughout the 80s, vending machines popped up all over the place. They were supposed to offer convenience and easy shopping, especially in rural areas. Those specializing in adult goods figured that they'd be good for business, too, because they offer a degree of privacy and anonymity. This same rationale is why quasi-legal drugs have recently been sold via vending machines. It's also why you could, until around 2002 at least, purchase magic mushrooms via vending machines—they were made illegal around the time of the 2002 World Cup—in love hotels. (At the time, the rumor was that these drugs were made illegal over concerns about foreign soccer fans getting high.) Since you could get, well, a wide variety goods via vending machine, it seems to make sense that someone, somewhere in Japan, would decide to offer underpants—used underpants. During the 1990s, there was a cottage industry, with some teens cashing in on the schoolgirl craze and selling their "worn" skivvies. So, yes, someone somewhere in Japan would put those in vending machines, too. But that wasn't the main way used panties were sold—they were sold in a certain type of adult store—and it apparently wasn't widespread. This used clothing trade, however, soon came under scrutiny for obvious reasons, and a group of used underwear sellers were busted in 1993 for selling schoolgirl underpants; they were nailed for violating the country's child welfare and second-hand seller laws. Today, this type of business is thankfully illegal. Of course, it's still totally legal to sell new underpants via vending machines, which is how you'd actually see these sorts of vending machines in Japan—if you actually saw one (website Gakuranmanspotted one a few years back as did this Japanese site; Blog of the Hawksaw one at a hot springs resort that was for people who needed clean underpants.) Still, the vast majority of Japanese people have no clue about them because the vast majority of people have never seen one. They weren't exactly out in the open. There weren't many of them. And the ones that existed were often in old, sketchy vending machines in super sketchy places. More importantly, most people are just not interested in buying underpants from a vending machine. So if you knew about them, that probably said more about the places you frequented or the things you are interested than Japan. They were real, yes, but were a blip on Japan's subculture radar and more of an urban legend than anything else. They have seen been blown out of proportion, fetishized by foreigners, and turned into a caricature—much like a Hollywood movie.

Vending machines are seemingly everywhere in Japan, and the country has an array of them. Yet, Motomachi also claims he has "no interest in the vending machine itself or its contents." The reason why he started this blog was he wanted to do something he could update daily, but that doesn't take up more than five minutes of his time.

Each day, the vending machine does change, whether that's the weather or the time of day, the drinks, the advertisements, or even the vending machine's tech. For example, in 2008, this vending machine wouldn't take digital payments; however, starting sometime in 2009, it would. From that point, you can see an e-money reader on the machine.

However, each post has a dated image of the vending machine and is typically titled "変化なし" (henka nashi) or "no change". On the site, you can see the same machine in several photos taken on the same day in the past and compare.

The reason "no change" is the default is because noticing changes eats up Motomachi's time, he says, which ticks him off. Thus, Motomachi rarely titles his posts "プチ変化" (puchi henka) or "slight change". But when does, watch out, because he'll catalog things like drink changes and placement. Sometimes, he'll note sticker changes, too.

It really falls on the reader to notice all the little changes! And those small changes seem even bigger. Have a look: ExpandExpandExpandExpandExpandAnd here is the site's Flicker page:

ExpandI take a picture of the vending machine every day (or so). I'm very sorry. feels like a brilliant running gag. There's no need to be sorry. Carry on, Motomachi, carry on.